Dell forum: Dual Monitors - 2nd monitor not working - no picture

Hello. I am having an issue getting my dual monitors to work.I have 2 Radeon x300 series monitors and a Dell Dimension 4700 with a pentium 4 and windows xp.They are hooked up via a regular monitor plug and a div plug (with an adapter). Under the display Properties I have extended my window desktop onto the other montior. When I minimize a screen I can have it sit in limbo between the two monitors but I can only see the image on one monitor - the other monitor has a black screen. The monitor that I am seeing a visual on is plugged into the tradition monitor port. The other monitor is plugged into the adapter that is plugged into the dvi port. Any suggestions?

You said that when you minimise a screen, (I assume you mean minimise a window), you can have it sit in limbo between the two monitors but you can only see the image on one monitor - the other monitor has a black screen.

Does that mean if you do not minimise a window, that it is visible on the 2nd monitor?

What do you mean by, 'in limbo'? When a window is minimised you should still be able to see it's application icon on the Taskbar.

Can you drag windows from one monitor to the other and still see it in either monitor display?

I will attache photos show what I mean. If I minimize a screen I can suspend it between the two monitors but I can only see the images on the left screen and not the right one. I have switched the monitors and plugged them into the opposite plug so I know they both work. I can move a screen completely over to the other monitor but I will not be able to see it on there at all. The second photo is of how my monitors are plugged into the back.

at http://i38.tinypic.com/2j4swsj.jpg I thought I must have erred in thinking this was Windows. it doesn't look like any Windows OS I recognise. But then I re-read your first post stating this is Windows XP.

It looks heavily modified to me, and that is always a concern when you are trying to set things up with standard Windows settings.

I also see a BitTorrent application. Torrents are often a source of trouble for Windows users where malware is concerned.

I have to pass on this because I have exceeded my knowledge. I hope others here can help.

Mark - The picture that you posted is not what I posted. I am not sure what happened. But when you click on the ones above - the first one just shows a window between screens only being able to see the image on the left screen.

Yep I've got it now. The problem was my browser didn't display that image when I clicked the link, so I assumed it was one in the row below. That's why we tend to prefer the link to the image itself, and not to the image hosting directory page. It avoids confusion.

It looks dead doesn't it. I assume, (and forgive me for asking the obvious), that the 2nd monitor is turned on. Also, any color or contrast settings buttons on that monitor have not been turned down to black.

The connections at the rear of the computer look OK, I have a similar DVI to VGA adaptor on my PC for my 2nd monitor. In fact, if the connection wasn't working, Windows would not accept the settings for a 2nd monitor, and would default back to a single monitor. Clearly that isn't happening in your image since one application window is half-way across the two monitors.

I think your next step is to test this monitor elsewhere. It may be possible for the data connection to be working and yet the monitor itself to fail.

On my system I purchased 3 DVI to VGA adaptors. I'm glad I did because the first one didn't work, but that was obvious with my system because Windows didn't even recognise that the 2nd monitor was connected. I used another adaptor and it worked. I'm not sure that will be as easy with your setup.

Yes they are both working I have switched the plugs around and I get images on each monitor separetly plugged in but not together. I have updated drivers for the monitors but that did not change anything either.

I was thinking that there was a connection issue via the adapter but like you said Windows XP wouldn't accept the sharing desktop application if the 2 monitors were not connected.

Sorry for the delay, I had email problems and didn't see the tracking email from your reply.

In a way that's good news isn't it, that both monitors work individually. Just to confirm, you connected each monitor to the DVI socket on it's own, (no other monitor on the other socket with the DVI/VGA adaptor connection), and they both worked. Have I got that right?

It seems to me there are two possibilities. Either the 2nd port on that video card is not working, or the adaptor is faulty. My guess would be the adaptor is faulty. I can imagine that it may be connected sufficiently to let some data through and that allows Windows to recognise there is a 2nd monitor, but faulty enough that it doesn't allow video through.

That would be easier to check simply by getting a new adaptor and trying it. The other, a faulty video card, is of course more difficult and ultimately may be more expensive.

There could be one more test. Do you have access to another computer? if so, try that adaptor on the other computer.

I have a compaq desktop and it has a vedeo card with vga port and dvi I conected to monitors the main to the vga and the second to the dva with an adaptor to a vga .. I get the main screen and when I set them in the display it looks like im able to move a window from one screen to the other but im not able to see anything on my second monitor.. I just purchased this adapter branew

hi. i see that your post was about 2 weeks ago (unlike the original poster ...2010 lol). anyways if you still havent figured it out, this might help. it did for me. i was frustrated at my dual monitor setup cause the second monitor was just blank/black screen. i thought it was the dvi-to-vga adapter. then i thought it was the vga cable. i was already one click away from ordering a dvi-hdmi cable at amazon (which is the original setup i had before i gave away the dvi-hdmi cable to my sis) when i realize maybe the input is not on VGA. so i pressed the input button on my screen and choose vga. and wohoooo success. try it out. it might be the answer you need. peace out

i moved my cpu, and the cable to the second monitor fell out from the vga card plug. When i try puting it back, the second monitor doesn't want to switch on. It is just having the orange light and the screen is black. when i try removing the cable out either from the cpu or the monitor the light goes green, and saying no signal on the screen and goes off again i tried all i can but nothing is helping at all

my main screen is flatron LG and the second screen is a proline. where must i find that input button so that i tried that.

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